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iPad Follies


raymac46

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If I ever needed to have a deeper respect and admiration for those of you who provide technical IT support for a living, I got an object lesson today in just that.

I have just spent 2 hours setting up an iPad for a lady I know who's in her late 70s, thinks she knows a lot about computers and knows zilch. During that time I managed to connect the device to her Wireless LAN, configure the iPad, get an Apple account, install a few Apple apps, YouTube, Facebook, Yahoo! Mail, Google Chrome, and a strange library app called Overdrive Media Console.

This is without me ever using an iPad before in my life.

Most of the time I was doing this I was also managing her expectations, as she took for granted that she'd be able to use Facebook with Internet Explorer, and get her email with Windows Live Mail as she has since the days of Vista. She also did not know her wifi password (she has a DOCSIS 3 router but used a canned ISP thumbdrive program to configure it.) I was able to get in to the router and discover the password. I had brought along my Nexus 7 to verify I could connect to the router and did so before starting the iPad.

Then she confessed she did not remember her email password either. I had her call the ISP to change it, and then we changed it back and I set up her desktop PC again, before moving on to the iPad.

This is a lady who never buys anything online because of her security fears. She was shocked that I didn't intend to put Norton Internet Security on the iPad. I don't know how she is going to make out with the Apps Store.

All the while I was tapping, swiping, getting squiggly icons when trying to move icons around, dealing with unresponsive install buttons, and having to type passwords over and over on a stupid virtual keyboard. This was a larger iPad so it wasn't as annoying as my Nexus 7 but still... :angry2: I honestly don't know if I ever exited from any of the apps, and I'm not sure I even know how. It isn't the same as Android and to me seems even less intuitive.

This lady is going to take the iPad with her when she and her husband head for Halifax in a couple of weeks to visit her grandson. I don't know if she realizes yet it won't work there if he doesn't have a wifi LAN. I suppose she can always go to a McCafe. That's assuming she will be able to boot the thing in the first place.

I'm back here in Linux Mint 15 with a keyboard, mouse, quad core 3.6 GHz 64 bit AMD CPU and 21 inch screen. Nirvana.

Edited by raymac46
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I just got another call. Now she wants to run Farmville and Pioneer Trail games on her iPad inside Facebook. Again I had to explain that she doesn't have Flash or the computer muscle necessary for those games. Some people should just stick to Windows 7.

The iPad kept telling her that the Pioneer Trail mobile URL wasn't configured properly and she thought that meant she had to connect the tablet to her PC with a USB cable. :teehee:

Edited by raymac46
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Guest LilBambi

Never needed those classes. None of my clients, no matter how old they are did either.

 

Learning an iPad was like falling off a log ... drop dead easy.

 

You certainly had a few hurtles totally unrelated to the iPad itself.

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